This invention relates to packaging machinery and more particularly to an apparatus and method for lightly gripping items, such as sticky and delicate food items and food items with irregular or unpredictable shapes to be packaged in a way that preserves the integrity and appearance of the item.
It is well-known in the packaging machinery field that such items, such as sticky, delicate and irregularly or unpredictably shaped food items, present problems in handling and wrapping. Previous methods have involved conveyor mechanisms for carrying the items to a pivotally mounted plate wherein a cam actuated mechanism tilts the plate depositing the food item onto trays or into cartons located on a second conveyor system beneath the first conveyor system. Such an apparatus can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,030,268 to Payne.
Side-by-side conveyors are known in the art and vary from transversely located conveyors as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,574,986 to Dieter to lateral conveyors as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,288,088 to Leedy.
Sweeping the item to be packaged into the packaging container is also known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,574,986 to Dieter shows such a device for packaging items such as bottles or jars. However, the bottles or jars do not need the careful handling that food items such as most donuts or pastries or other fragile articles may require to preserve their integrity and appearance.
Another type of packaging device known in the art utilizes a vacuum system and two lateral conveyors. One conveyor carries baking pans and rolls to the loading station and the other conveyor carries preassembled cartons or containers to the loading station zone. A transport mechanism having a plurality of suction cups depending therefrom engages the tops of the rolls and moves them upward out of the pan. The transport mechanism moves laterally on a pair of overhead ways to the packing zone where it moves the rolls downward into the preassembled container. The vacuum is then broken releasing the rolls.
Problems arise with these apparatuses. Sliding food off a conveyor is difficult with sticky food. Vacuum systems are not appropriate for items such as donuts wherein the hole will not allow a proper suction. In addition the shape or structure of other delicate items to be packaged may prohibit the use of a vacuum system. What is, therefore, needed is a packaging apparatus which grips the article to be packaged in such a way as to ensure that it will not be damaged. As such, a device which lightly grips the article with pneumatically padded fingers achieves the desired result.
The primary object of the invention is to provide a device which lightly grips items during transport during a packaging operation.
Another object is to utilize computer controlled pneumatic robotics for finger grippers used to move the articles from a production line to a packaging line.
Yet another object is to provide vertically pneumatic padded gripper fingers for gripping delicate items to be wrapped.